UNDP in India

Statement by UNDP Administrator Helen Clark on International Women's Day

08 Mar 2014

This year’s International Women’s Day theme – Equality for Women is
Progress for All – states a simple truth. No country will reach its
full potential if its female citizens do not enjoy full equality. As
the 2015 end date of the Millennium Development Goals nears, and as
discussion on the next global development agenda intensifies, there is
strong momentum for achieving development with equity, including by
eradicating gender inequality and empowering women and girls.

Next
week, the 58th UN Commission on the Status of Women will convene in New
York. Its discussions will focus on “Challenges and achievements in
the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals for women and
girls.” While there has, undoubtedly, been progress for many women and
girls, it has been uneven and too slow. The world has officially
achieved gender parity in primary education, but regional gaps persist
and girls’ enrolment drops off at the secondary level. The proportion of
women in national parliaments has grown, but women still comprise
around only 21 per cent of the world’s parliamentarians. Lagging
farthest behind is MDG 5, which focuses on reducing maternal mortality
and achieving universal access to reproductive health care.

Grounded
in international human rights, gender equality doesn’t just improve the
lives of individual women, girls, and their families; it makes
economic sense, strengthens democracy, and enables long-term sustainable
progress.

Women with even some education tend to have have fewer
and healthier children, better economic opportunities, and to be more
likely to ensure that their own children go to school. One of the
findings of UNDP’s 2013 Human Development Report was that a mother’s
education is more important to child survival than are household income
or wealth.

Access to sexual and reproductive health services
enables women to plan their families and expand their opportunities, and
it also helps prevent maternal and child mortality.

Making sure
that women farmers have equal access to agricultural resources boosts
women’s incomes and status, and has a positive impact on a country’s
agricultural sectors.

Let’s mark this International Women’s Day
by redoubling our efforts to make equality for women a reality. That
means ensuring that women have access to education and resources, decent
work, and equal pay. It means removing the structural barriers -- the
discriminatory laws and institutions, and gender stereotypes and
practices – which prevent women from fulfilling their economic, social
and political rights. It means getting more women into political office
and ensuring that women have a voice in the decisions which affect
their lives – in households and communities, in government and other
sectors, and at peace-keeping tables. It means ensuring that women have
freedom from violence, access to health care, and the ability to make
their own sexual and reproductive health choices.

The need to
address such inequalities came up consistently in the UN-led
consultations on the post-2015 development framework. In the
MyWorldSurvey, education, health care and job opportunities – all so
central to women’s empowerment - are top priorities for the more than
1.4 million people who have voted worldwide. In an e-discussion
organized by UNDP, one contributor highlighted the importance of gender
equality this way: “A society that fails its women and girls ultimately
fails itself.”

Let’s commit ourselves to investing our time and
resources in all aspects of gender equality and women’s empowerment.
Only then can we fulfill the rights of all women and men, and create a
more inclusive, sustainable, and resilient world.